Jerusalem rabbi charged with inciting racism for claiming in Torah lesson Arab doctors trying to harm IDF soldiers

The State Prosecutor’s Office has indicted a Jerusalem rabbi on charges of inciting racism after he accused Arab doctors of intentionally harming IDF soldiers during a Torah lesson, which was recorded and shared online.

“They murder every day — Arab men and women murder in hospitals more than Hamas,” Rabbi Meir David Shmueli is quoted as having said in December 2023. It took Israeli authorities nearly three years to indict him.

“These doctors, everyone should pray that God eradicates them,” the indictment quotes him as having said.

In another recorded Torah lesson, Shmueli called Arab educators “donkeys.”

Last month, Yehoshua Shani, chairman of the far-right Gvura Forum for families of soldiers killed fighting in Gaza, claimed that his wounded nephew did not receive proper care from Arab staff at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

The accusations were quickly seized upon by far-right and populist politicians.

Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israel Defense Forces to investigate the incident in coordination with all relevant parties.

Rambam, for its part, rejected the allegations following its own review of the incident, writing in a statement that “all patients, and certainly IDF soldiers, receive high-quality, professional care from a skilled and experienced medical team.”

The statement didn’t address what some said were the racist motivations of the hospital’s critics, which angered Arab medical personnel at the site.